Photo by Ryan Kelly/Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images
–Conventional wisdom played out; Obama will tap Solicitor General Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court. The White House is rolling out with a 10 a.m. ET event where the president and his pick are both expected to speak.
–Never having served on the bench, Kagan’s record is …
Listening to arguements today on The City of Ontario v. Quon — a case about whether police officers sexting each other on city-given pagers had an expectation of privacy — the Supreme were struggling a bit with the technology. You know you’re in trouble when the youngest guy on the court, Chief Justice John Roberts, asks: “What’s the …
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
–So health care is done for now. Congress is running off on recess and President Obama is headed to Camp David for the weekend. Everyone could probably use a rest.
–Majority Leader Reid, caught up in the moment, accidentally voted “no” on health care (again) yesterday before …
A dispatch from our colleague Alex Altman:
Less than an hour after President Obama signed the health-care reform bill into law, attorneys general from 13 states filed a lawsuit challenging the bill’s constitutionality. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, acting on behalf of 13 states, filed suit in U.S. District Court in Pensacola,
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Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
–As Karen and Jay mentioned, all signs point to Speaker Pelosi using the “self-executing rule” to deem the Senate health care bill passed without a full vote on anything but the reconciliation package of fixes. House Dems really don’t want to have an “aye” for the Senate bill’s warts on …
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts last week lashed out at President Obama for his State of the Union criticism of the court’s Citizens United ruling — the line where Associate Justice Samuel Alito shook his head and mouthed the words “No true.” Roberts, speaking at the University of Alabama, called Obama’s remarks “very …
Photo courtesy of Ben Nelson’s office
–After so many months of vitriolic debate and soap-operatic drama, one might be skeptical when they hear this is the week health reform faces its ultimate test. But it is. House markup of the reconciliation package is scheduled to begin at 3 pm today. The final CBO score is forthcoming. The …
As Karen and Michael noted we all did stories for the Broken Government project with our sister company CNN. Mine was on term limits (thank you deconstructiva for reminding me to post). Love ’em or hate ’em, they aren’t likely to happen any time soon as, thanks to a 1995 Supreme Court ruling, it’ll take a constitutional amendment to enact them.
–Republicans in Congress still seem a little thrown off by the health care summit and haven’t yet settled on a message going in. Andrew Sullivan notes some inconsistency. They also haven’t decided which way to go on the Senate jobs bill.
–Former GOP Senator Lincoln Chafee, now running as an independent, makes the case for a third …
—Tech President charts the origin of that jobs graphic.
–A politician may finally be allowed to use John Mellencamp songs at rallies: John Mellencamp.
–It’s impersonation day; the NRCC channels Nancy Pelosi in a fundraising e-mail and Charlie Crist ghostwrites a CPAC address for Marco Rubio.
—Bush 43 asks, “Who the [heck] is …
Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, one of the top Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, today said he would not vote for President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor. The decision is a surprising blow to Sotomayor as Hatch not only voted for the last 12 nominees to the bench — Republican or Democrat — but he also …
When President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor made her rounds on Capitol Hill, one of her harshest critics was South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham who said after that first meeting that he was “deeply troubled” by her nomination. Something must have happened on the way to the hearings last week because on …
Most lawyers (and any one who’s seen Legally Blonde) know well Aristotle’s famous phrase: The law is reason free from passion.
